In November, the US Department of Agriculture published a final rule establishing animal welfare standards for the millions of animals raised on organic farms.
For years, US Department of Agriculture inspectors dutifully documented suffering: Chinchillas with eyes swollen, weeping, and sealed shut; a thin, unresponsive chinchilla, missing part of her leg, brutally “euthanized” by breaking her neck; anoth
A new report reveals the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is failing to verify the accuracy of label claims on meat and poultry products sold in the United States. Released by the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) today, Label Confusion: How “Humane” And “Sustainable” Claims On Meat Packages Deceive Consumers exposes the lack of any apparent verification of food label claims used on millions of meat packages, and calls on USDA to require independent third-party certification to prevent consumers from being misled.
In the Winter 2014 AWI Quarterly, AWI reported that the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) had proposed changing the poultry slaughter regulations to allow poultry companies to accelerate their slaughter process by 25 percent, increasing the likelihood of inhumane handling of birds.
Vanderbilt University had been fined over $8,000 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for violations of the Animal Welfare Act in connection with three incidents of animal deaths at a university research facility.
The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) today requested a USDA Inspector General audit of the USDA Process Verified Program, which certifies some products as “humanely raised” when in fact they come from animals suffering on conventional, industrial farming operations.
The US Department of Agriculture’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued a report highlighting serious shortcomings in enforcement of the Horse Protection Act—shortcomings that have permitted widespread abuse of show horses. The law, first passed in 1970 and amended in 1976, was intended to prevent the "soring" of Tennessee Walking Horses and other gaited breeds—a process where injuries are inflicted on the horses’ legs and hooves to produce an exaggerated gait known as "the big lick."
The Des Moines Register published an editorial on November 13, 2016, entitled “Why won’t the USDA shut down this serial animal abuser?” The paper of record for the state of Iowa—one of the biggest puppy mill states—was referring to dog breeder Gar
The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service announced in September that it had launched a new exploratory sampling program to assess the accuracy of “no antibiotic” marketing claims for beef products.
What will it take for the US Department of Agriculture and local law enforcement to take bird abandonment seriously? Apparently, five incidents resulting in the death of over 20,000 birds at one facility alone is not enough.
The disturbing pictures included with this article, taken by a US Department of Agriculture inspector in 2017, are worth far more than a thousand words. And Moulton Chinchilla Ranch (MCR)—a licensed dealer supplying chinchillas for experimentation (see AWI Quarterly, summer 2020)—knows it.
The US Department of Agriculture recently proposed several changes to the process of slaughtering pigs, including allowing slaughterhouses to operate without any limits on the speed of the line.
The US Department of Agriculture is soliciting public comment on a discredited idea that would undermine the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) by putting animals at the mercy of the industries that exploit them.
Since the national organic regulations went into effect in 2001, AWI has called on the US Department of Agriculture and the National Organic Standards Board to establish animal welfare requirements for producers that are certified organic via the National Organic Program.
USDA appears to be pushing ahead with a controversial proposal to modify its poultry slaughter inspection program despite a troubling report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) appreciates that the US Department of Agriculture has developed a revised strategy to address the staggering impacts of the current bird flu outbreak, yet the five-point plan continues to incentivize producers to maintain massive flock sizes and overcrowded conditions that encourage disease transmission while undermining animal welfare.
Today, the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) and WildEarth Guardians (Guardians), represented by the Western Environmental Law Center (WELC), notified the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Wildlife Services program of their intent to sue over the program’s failure to ensure that it is not harming ocelots, which are listed as an endangered species under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA).
The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) is extremely disappointed by the revised meat and poultry guidelines released yesterday by the US Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS).
On February 3, the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) abruptly removed from its website inspection reports and other key documents relating to enforcement of the Horse Protection Act (HPA) and the Animal Welfare Act (AWA).
Thomas Vilsack has returned as secretary of the US Department of Agriculture, a post he held previously during the Obama administration. Vilsack, a former Iowa governor, spent the past four years lobbying for the US dairy industry.
The US Department of Agriculture recently proposed new “routine uses” of records under the federal Privacy Act that determine disclosure of information outside the department. The USDA seems determined to make permanent the drastic limitations on the information it makes available to the public regarding the compliance history of licensees under the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) and the Horse Protection Act (HPA).
On November 4, 2014, US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Administrator Kevin Shea filed a 10-page complaint alleging a plethora of willful violations of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) by Santa Cruz Biotechnology, Inc. (SCBT), one of the world’s largest suppliers of research antibodies.
